Monday, September 16, 2013

Guest Post by Virginia Cunningham

Using Meditation To
Inspire Creative Writing

by Virginia Cunningham

As a writer, you’ve probably experienced writer’s block- that
horrible fog that clouds your thoughts and keeps your creativity from flowing.
Sometimes, writer’s block is just temporary, lasting only a day or two before
the creative juices start to flow freely again. However, in those awful
prolonged times when writer’s block doesn’t just disappear with time, you need
to take steps to return to a state of creativity. Meditation is one of the best
ways to defeat writer’s block and inspire some of the best writing of your
life.

Clarify Your Thoughts

If your main creative difficulty is that your thoughts are too
muddled to form a coherent idea, then meditation might be the right path for
you. Through the process of meditation, you can learn to focus on one thought
and allow the other unimportant thoughts fade away. Once your mind can
concentrate on yourcreative ideas, other ideas will certainly
follow.

Clear Your Mind

When you are waiting for inspiration to strike, sometimes stray
thoughts pull away your focus. You might think about work, relationships and
fights you have had in the past, but if you can’t stop thinking about your
problems, you won’t be able to be your most creative self. Meditation can teach
you how to completely clear your mind of that negativity so that the next time
you want to write, you can do so without issues.

Eases Anxiety

One of the biggest causes of writer’s block is anxiety about
your talent. If you are too busy worrying about failing or not being “good”
enough, you will never be able to put pen to paper and let your words flow. With
meditation and breathing exercises, you can let loose of those anxieties and
start to feel more confident about yourself and your writing abilities.

Removes Fear

Inhibition is one thing that can stifle your creative writing.
If you feel too afraid to go to a certain emotional place in your writing, your
writing might feel too safe or could lack depth. Without going to that place,
your writing will always be missing something. Meditation can help you become
thefearless
writer you know you want to be.

Better Flow

It can be tough to write creatively if you keep stopping and
starting with every thought. When you have flow, you can get all of your
thoughts to paper much quicker. That way your thoughts don’t disappear before
you have time to put them on paper. Meditation can help you have better flow
when writing creatively.

Better Concentration

If you are anything like most people, you probably have
difficulty keeping your attention on one thing for a long period of time.
Without great concentration, you can’t focus on your writing or thoughts for
too long before moving on to the next thing. In order to have better focus on
your creative writing, meditation teaches you to concentrate on the task at
hand.

Ignore Your Critics

Once you’ve learned to meditate, you will finally be able to
shut out the voices of those who criticize you. Your critics can say that you
aren’t good enough or advise you to quit writing, but you’ll be able to shut
them up and only think about your work. That’s the way you’ll improve, not by
listening to the voices that doubt you.

Meditation has so many benefits for anybody with a passion for
creative writing. You can finally defeat the writer’s block and doubt as long
as you have meditation on your side.

Virginia Cunningham
is a writer in Southern California and her work can often be found on Northwest
Pharmacy. Meditation has become very helpful to her when she
struggles with a writing assignment, and it helps to keep her mind clear and
focused regularly.